


a mother's wish

by rikubraveheart



Series: Slice of Clack Event [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crisis Core Era (Compilation of FFVII), Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Missing Scene, Slice of Clack, SoCPrint, because I'm weak, i just wanted to write them having dinner with claudia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikubraveheart/pseuds/rikubraveheart
Summary: Slice of Clack, Week 1: Intimacy.“Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Zack Fair,” he says.“Oh, I know. I’ve heard quite a bit about you in Cloud’s letters,” she says, sending Cloud a teasing look. “It’s nice to finally meet the subject of my son’s endless rambling.”Zack looks at Cloud from the corner of his eye and sees the most adorable blush dusting over his cheeks.“Mom.”In the warmth of Cloud's childhood home, promises are made between a mother and a boy in love.
Relationships: Cloud Strife & Cloud Strife's Mother, Zack Fair & Cloud Strife's Mother, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Series: Slice of Clack Event [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797526
Comments: 13
Kudos: 118
Collections: Slice of Clack: July 2020





	a mother's wish

**Author's Note:**

> Slice of Clack, week 1: intimacy.
> 
> My first entry for this event! Oooh boy, I love zakkura so much and I jumped at the opportunity to write some domestic stuff for them. Extra fluffy. Family was amongst the prompts for this week and I wanted to write them having dinner with Claudia :)
> 
> Curiously this is the only one of my fics for this event that doesn't have already established zakkura.
> 
> My twitter: [@rikubraveheart](https://twitter.com/rikubraveheart)

Nibelheim isn’t so different from Gongaga. He and Cloud have joked before about backwater towns being all the same, but now that he’s actually there the similarities are really eerie. The old worn-out houses, the strangely peaceful atmosphere and the mako reactor at the outskirts are just a few of the things both towns have in common.

The one thing they don’t have in common is definitely the climate. If Zack wasn’t SOLDIER, he’d probably be freezing to death.

Cloud, though, seems to be completely unaffected, like the Nibelheim native he is.

It had been a stroke of luck that they were going on a mission to his friend’s hometown, since it gave him more time to spend with him. The time they had been able to spend alone was limited, as attempts to ask Cloud on a date kept getting crashed by other infantrymen or other SOLDIER who decided to tag along uninvited. 

This may be his only opportunity to ask Cloud out on a proper date.

Zack is at the inn, alone again since Sephiroth locked himself in Shinra manor, after a long day of doing, well, nothing, when he hears a knock at the door. He opens it and sees Cloud standing at the doorway.

“Oh, hello,” he says. He wasn’t expecting a visit.

“Hi,” answers his friend. Zack waits for him to say something else, but Cloud just keeps standing there awkwardly. 

Even after months of friendship, he’s still surprised of how he can fluctuate from being completely at ease with him to not knowing how to have a normal conversation.

His shyness is only one of Cloud’s many adorable traits, he supposes.

“Did you need something?” he asks, with an easy smile on his face.

“Well, I was telling my ma’ you’re staying at the inn and we both know the food here isn’t the best so she suggested you come over for dinner,” he explains, barely managing to get the words out. His shyness must be acting up again.

He’s fidgeting, so it isn’t hard to guess that there’s more to this invitation than what he just said, but Zack accepts nonetheless. He fills the walk to Cloud’s house with his usual chatter, his companion preferring to listen but also interjecting from time to time.

He finally stops in front of a modest little house. Zack looks at it, and he can definitely imagine little Cloud there. He smiles at the thought of his friend’s childhood and makes a mental note to ask his mom for some stories.

“Home sweet home,” says Cloud.

He opens the door and Zack follows him inside. The interior is as modest as the exterior, and it’s clear that they mustn’t have had a lot of money while Cloud was growing up, much like Zack and his family. 

“Ma’, I brought Zack as you said,” Cloud says to the empty room.

It doesn’t remain empty for much longer, though, because a few seconds later Cloud’s mother is walking in.

Claudia Strife is beautiful much like her son, and Zack can definitely see the resemblance. You’d have to be blind to _not_ see them. Then she smiles widely at him and Zack thinks he’d like to see that kind of smile on Cloud’s face more often. The similarities are endless, from the beautiful shade of golden hair to the stunning baby blue of their eyes.

But what he loves the most is the way their smiles look so similar. It’s clear to him that it’s easier to draw a smile from Claudia than from Cloud, but thanks to the few times he’s managed to make cloud give him one of those wide, bright smiles he can now see where he got them from.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Zack Fair,” he says. 

“Oh, I know. I’ve heard quite a bit about you in Cloud’s letters,” she says, sending Cloud a teasing look. “It’s nice to finally meet the subject of my son’s endless rambling.”

Zack looks at Cloud from the corner of his eye and sees the most adorable blush dusting over his cheeks.

_“Mom.”_

“Well, I did wonder what he kept writing about in his letters. He does spend quite a bit of time writing to you and it’s not like life at Shinra headquarters is _that_ interesting,” he jokes, not missing the opportunity to mess with Cloud a bit.

The light blush on Cloud’s cheeks has turned into a full-blown red that covers even his neck. In a poor attempt to hide it, he tries to cover his face with his hand, which only makes Zack want to pull it away to get a better look at him. 

Claudia laughs. “Come on, let’s go sit at the table. I’ll show you a proper traditional Nibelheim meal, not that cheap food they sell at the inn.”

They go into the tiny dining room, where there’s already a table set for three people. Zack notices there’s a lot of pictures of Cloud on the walls, and it warms his heart to see how much Claudia loves her son.

He approaches them to take a quick look. Some of them are only Cloud, but he’s also very frequently accompanied by a little girl of brown hair he can only assume is Tifa. In others, he’s with his mom. There’s not a single picture of Cloud’s father.

Zack already knows what happened, Cloud having mentioned it briefly a while ago, and reminds himself to not mention him.

“It smells delicious,” he says, sitting at the table.

“Well, thank you,” he hears Claudia say from the kitchen.

“She made Nibel steak,” explains Cloud. “Ma’ makes the best Nibel steak there is, you’ll love it.”

Cloud looks cute when he’s showing his mom off but, again, when doesn’t he look cute. 

When Claudia reenters the room with two plates of what Cloud called Nibel steak on her hands, she catches Zack staring at her son. He quickly looks away, not exactly ashamed but not wanting to embarrass himself either. 

Her smile changes from an easygoing one to a more cryptic one. It kind of reminds him of Cloud’s little mischievous smiles before he’s about to either prank or embarrass him, which makes Zack _extremely_ nervous.

She finally brings her own plate and sits down with them.

“I hope you like it,” she says.

And boy, does he like it. 

They were right when they said the food at the inn was a poor imitation of real Nibel food. Claudia’s cooking reminds him of his own mother’s so good and tasty in all the right ways. A real home-cooked meal. He wishes he could visit his home, but SOLDIER work allows for very few breaks.

He looks up from the plate to see Cloud smiling at him.

“Told you you’d love it,” he says.

He smiles back and then notices Claudia looking at them with that undecipherable stare again.

“It’s delicious, ma’am,” he tells her. “Say, would you happen to have any stories from when Cloud was a child that you could tell me?”

Her face lights up at the same time that a look of pure horror appears on Cloud’s face. The rest of the dinner is spent hearing stories from his childhood, which both amuse and make him coo at how cute Cloud must’ve been as a child.

“Bathing him as a baby was a mess,” she says. “His hair is naturally that spiky, you see. So trying to brush and dry his hair in a way that he wouldn’t look like a scared porcupine was a hard task. He was never still long enough.” this so cute omg

“Aw man, I wish I had seen that,” he laughs.

“No, you don’t,” quickly blurts out Cloud.

Claudia claps her hands once and looks like she just remembered something really important.

“Actually, you can!” she exclaims. “Cloud, go get the photo album from my bedroom.”

He doesn’t look amused and seems ready to complain, but a smile from his mother tells him that he doesn’t have much choice in the matter.

Cloud disappears into another room and suddenly Zack is alone with Claudia. By all means, he shouldn’t feel nervous, but his body tenses up like he were about to battle a monster. He moves his gaze from the spot where Cloud has disappeared back to Claudia.

She’s looking at him, and she has on her face the same smile she had used to send Cloud on his way.

“So… you and my son?” 

Zack almost chokes on air. The tone on her voice is definitely suggestive, and he doesn’t miss the implication of the question. This only furthers the nervousness he was already starting to feel.

“Um… I don’t know what you mean?” he tries to say.

“You don’t sound so convinced,” she tells him. “Relax, this isn’t a shovel talk.”

He sighs from the relief and relaxes.

“Or, well… at least that’s not the main objective of this talk.” That makes him tense up again. Claudia is no longer smiling, her expression suddenly serious. “Since Cloud was a child… he’s had trouble with relationships. I know I’ve been telling you funny stories from his childhood, but it wasn’t all that good, as much as I tried. Children… they can be cruel, and a boy with no father is the perfect target for that cruelty, especially in a place like Nibelheim.

“So, when Cloud started telling me about you in his letters, I was ecstatic. He never had many friends here, only Tifa, and I knew his luck hadn’t been much better in Midgar. To hear that he had made a friend… it filled me with relief. Except he kept talking about you, and I realized you weren’t just a friend to him.”

He blinks, startled because he hadn’t been expecting a confirmation of Cloud’s feelings coming from said boy’s mother herself. Sure, he was pretty sure he felt the same, but suspecting and hearing it are two completely different things.

“Oh, you. Don’t look at me like that. I know what my son looks like when he has feelings for someone, and if that isn’t enough confirmation for you I assure you Cloud wouldn’t write that much about _just a friend_ ,” she says, which makes him snort. Claudia is smiling again, this time softly. “Now, where I was going with this is that I, like any mother was afraid that my boy was going to get his heart broken. This fear, of course, disappeared today when I saw how you stared at him. I may not know you well, Zack, but I know what a boy in love looks like.”

This would have made him blush if it weren’t because he had long since assimilated his feelings for Cloud.

“Well… you’re not wrong there,” he admits. And, boy, thinking it and saying it are two completely different experiences. Before it was something he had kept close to his heart, but now it felt more real than ever. 

“I’m glad that you’re at least aware of it, my son refuses to fully acknowledge it yet,” she laughs. “I won’t stop you from pursuing anything with my son, and I doubt I could even if I wanted, but I will ask you for one thing.”

He nods, expectantly.

“I won’t ask you to protect him, because he would probably hate that, but to make sure he gets to be _happy._ Fully and truly happy.”

“I will,” he says, deadly serious. “I promise I will do everything I can to make sure he’s happy and that he achieves his dreams. And, if there ever comes a day in which he needs me to protect him, I’ll also do that, even if he hates it.”

Claudia’s gaze softens, but they don’t get to take their conversation any further because Cloud reenters the room.

“What are you two talking about, so serious?” he asks.

“Oh, I was just telling dear Zack here about the crush you used to have on Tifa when you were little.”

_“Mom!”_

Zack laughs, and so does Claudia, and they spend the rest of the evening looking at Cloud’s baby photos while talking cheerfully. At that moment, Zack feels complete. 

“Do you want me to walk you back to the inn?” asks Cloud. He nods, because there’s no way he’d refuse an opportunity to spend even more time alone with him.

The walk back to the inn is silent, Zack being too lost in thought to fill it with his usual chatter. Cloud doesn’t seem to mind, though, and looks content to walk beside him in silence.

Under the sky of the cold night, he decides that he will definitely tell Cloud about his feelings before they leave Nibelheim. He had made a promise, and he would show Claudia Strife that he was going to honour it and give Cloud all the happiness in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, here's my Twitter: [@rikubraveheart](https://twitter.com/rikubraveheart)
> 
> Thanks to [Komo](https://twitter.com/guardianbeII) and [Yetu](https://twitter.com/RedBearUniverse) for beta reading this!


End file.
